Mid-infrared homodyne balanced detector for quantum light characterization

We present the characterization of a novel balanced homodyne detector operating in the mid-infrared. The challenging task of revealing non-classicality in mid-infrared light, e. g. in quantum cascade lasers emission, requires a high-performance detection system. Through the intensity noise power spectral density analysis of the differential signal coming from the incident radiation, we show that our setup is shot-noise limited. We discuss the experimental results with a view to possible applications to quantum technologies, such as free-space quantum communication. (C) 2021 Optical Society of America under the terms of the OSA Open Access Publishing Agreement